


To Sham and to Scold

by countessofbiscuit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Awkward Conversations, Fluff and Crack, GAR - Freeform, Gen, Recreational Drug Use, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 20:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20784647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/pseuds/countessofbiscuit
Summary: Mordagon Department of Sapient ServicesDecree of NullityWE HEREBY CERTIFYFirst: that on the 10th DAY of 9th MONTH of 978 PRR, we have proceeded to pronounce the Marriage between JEDI PADAWAN AHSOKA TANO and CT-7567 and CT-27-5555 VOID, according to Republic law (Section 11, “Prohibited Relationships”, Republic Marriage Act, 3613).Second: that having entered into a marriage which could have no legal basis in the Galactic Republic, but was valid according to local law and custom prior to the Treaty of Mordagon (25/4/978), the Parties have committed no civil crime, but they must now be considered as standing related to each other, as to all rights except those especially saved by the statute, as though the marriage ceremony had never been performed.Third: that the Parties may still be considered in breach of military law.Fourth: that annulment received Senatorial sanction (see Affidavit), voiding any obligation for the Parties to appear in court, and waiving their right to an appeal.Signed: Ethelster Nym, Acting Secretary





	To Sham and to Scold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flubi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flubi/gifts).

Anakin slid the datapad across the desk with ominous deliberation. In the silence that followed, the only sound in the small room was Rex minutely shifting his weight on his heels. Ahsoka didn't want to guess how long he’d been standing at attention and probably sweating slugs. 

“Care to explain this, Ahsoka?” her Master asked, all peevish responsibility. 

_Ahsoka_—not _Snips._ He used her nickname in front of the men all the time. She must really be in trouble. 

Ahsoka looked down at the ‘pad like one might appraise UXO. The word _marriage_ made her blink, and the word _crime_ made her actually grab it and study the text from the beginning. 

It was all going to blow up in her face anyhow. 

“Spitting siths, I didn’t think that was legit,” Ahsoka said, as she tried to parse the legalese that told her this was definitely legitimate. She threw enquiring glances over her shoulders at Rex and a holographic Fives as if to ask, _are you guys seeing this?_

“It isn’t,” replied Anakin. “That’s why you’re here.” _Here,_ in a staff office no one knew he even had ten minutes ago. 

“No—I mean, I didn’t think they actually _wrote it down._ It seemed really basic.” 

It _was_ basic—primitive, even. Just some Mordagese waving branches and passing around spliffs while she, Fives, and Rex took turns floating on their backs like corpses, according to the firm instructions of some high priest with a thick accent and an even thicker posse of adherents who lined the bank and tossed fruit at them now and then.

They weren’t getting out of that pool any other way. 

“You’re conversant in galactic marriage conventions, then?” asked Anakin, really channelling Obi-Mom now. Could her Grandmaster feel this disturbing irony in the Force? Was his beard twitching at the injustice of not being around to drag his Padawan? 

“Oh, come on, Master, we watch all the same lousy daytime holoprogramming—”

Anakin cut her off. “We’re getting off beam here. Fives,” he barked, blessedly turning his attention to the blue ARC stood even more rigidly than Rex, which was impressive, considering the wavy signal of the hologram. “You’re a terrible liar. Please explain how you came to be married to both Commander Tano _and_ Captain Rex.”

Ahsoka had to hand it to Fives, tuning in for a ball-busting like this. Stars only knew where he was; he could easily invent interference or cut out the transmission with some theatrics. But he stayed oncomm and scratched at his goatee, a classic Fives tell for, _I am so full of shit and I’m working out how to make it digestible to you._

“Well, sir, there was this … pool,” he began, “and we got caught.” 

Ahsoka suddenly imagined how that must sound to someone already prejudiced to believe the worst. Fives had chosen a weird way to begin.

“We were just swimming! With clothes on!” she added.

Anakin looked at her, affronted. “I should hope so!” 

“Yeah,” Fives clarified, “we weren’t fooling around or being inappropriate, sir.”

This was _worse_—Fives was actually making this worse. 

Behind her, Ahsoka felt something like a grappling line jerk taut. She didn’t even have to look to know it was Rex, tensing up as Fives inched closer to what they’d really been doing: shamming. That was inappropriate enough for him. 

“Turns out that particular pool was sacred. Something about being dedicated to the native fertility god, and only married people were supposed to take a dip.”

“Why were you swimming in the first place?” Anakin asked. 

“You remember Mordagon, sir. Stickier than a Hutt’s nards—”

_“Fives.”_

“Sorry, sir. We were just taking a break.”

“Just the three of you. Just the three senior officers on the ground.”

Anakin’s eyes flicked to Rex. It was the first time he’d acknowledged the Captain since Ahsoka had been in the office, and so far he’d been running this little examination as if fully ready to exonerate him. Rex was the star student, and the grapplling line that was his spine felt ready to snap. 

“Everything was fine, we left Kix in charge. He outranks everyone when he pulls out one of those bantha pokers,” Fives continued, miming a hypospray and supremely deflecting the actual offence, in Ahsoka’s opinion. “Anyway, the locals caught us paddling around, demanded to know if we were married, and then made us take vows and stuff right there in the water.” 

“Uh-huh.” Anakin’s eyes narrowed. Ahsoka could sense him working up to ask something really unpleasant. It didn’t make it any better when he finally did. “I take it they didn’t … make you do anything else?”

She thought the exaggerated outrage delivered by all three of them was quite well done. 

It placated her Master, but the awkwardness persisted in the room like a foul smell. 

“Captain, do you have anything to add?” he asked. 

Rex gave a curt shake of his blond head, blessedly maintaining their oath of silence about the post-nuptial spliffs and the incident with the walker and one very provoked rancor. “That was pretty much the way of it, sir. I take full responsibility—”

“You aren’t taking bantha poodoo, Rex. There was a time I’d have let you play the martyr, but then Padawan Tano here came down that ramp and absolved you of all future crimes and misdemeanors. Isn’t that right, _Commander?_” 

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, inwardly agreeing that it was always better her than Rex getting pulled up for ridiculous infractions like this. But she was still annoyed. “I honestly don’t know why they would go digging this stuff out. Don’t they know there’s a war on?”

“You know the first thing to come in after we’ve softened a place up, Commander,” said Fives, “bureaucrats and better freshers for all their—” 

“Fives,” Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair, relaxing at last. “They’re forming a militia. It was uncovered during a census.”

“And why did this come to you?” Ahsoka thrust her finger up and down the screen looking for a direction other than _General Skywalker, RSS Resolute, FCO 3 GAR._ They’d even cc’d the Temple. 

“I _am_ technically your legal guardian, Snips.” 

Ahsoka felt it was time to make her legal guardian sweat a little and grabbed the interrogative initiative. “Is that what this is about? I didn’t get your permission?” 

Anakin shrugged. “Probably.” 

“And what does _prohibited relationships_ even mean? Someone look that up.”

Rex unclipped his datapad, but Fives was already there. “I’ve got it,” he said, clearing his throat. “Prohibited relationships include ancestor and descendant of any degree, brother and sister—half-blood included—uncle and niece, aunt and nephew, persons and … non-persons.” 

“Nothing about age?” Ahsoka asked, beginning to feel a little indignant. 

“Marriageable age is covered under a different statute. Species-specific.”

“I may be a ward of the Temple, but I’m gonna guess that my personhood status isn’t the one in question here," Ahsoka said. Popular feeling against the clones was one thing—it nettled like walking through a plague of gnats—but to be dragged in front of her Master with his military face on and informed that her men—her _friends_—were, in legal fact, _non-persons_ felt like having an arm bitten off. 

“Maybe it’s ‘cause we’re _vode,_ Rex,” mused Fives, “though Echo could tear that case apart in his sleep.” 

“Fives, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you didn’t have a legal right to a third of my stuff. You steal enough anyway.” 

“Procurement never covers my expenses.” 

“You know,” Ahsoka cut in, “it’s customary on Shili for a Togruta to defend the integrity of her—” she almost said _harem,_ but that wouldn’t have helped her case _at all_—“clan with lethal force.” 

“We’re not on Shili,” Anakin said. “We’re on a Republic cruiser, in the service of the Grand Army, and Master Ti’s class on cultural relativism is about fifty parsecs _that_ way.” He gave a firm coreward jerk of his hand. 

Ahsoka gathered herself up and crossed her arms. “Still, I think Padmé might like to hear about this.” 

“Why. Why would Senator Amidala care.”

“She takes more than an academic interest in the subject.” 

There it was: that look of a nerf caught in the beam. Ahsoka eyed her Master knowingly as his conscience squirmed, oily and guilty, in the Force; then Rex coughed an uncomfortable little cough and Ahsoka eased up. 

“You know, her new committee on clone rights?”

Anakin finally exhaled. “Maybe she would. And maybe I can delete this transmission and decline to escalate it.” He flattened his hands on the desk and stood up quickly, as if he could physically move away from the worst kept secret in the Third Systems Army. 

“Well, Rex, there go our pensions,” said Fives with a cautious chuckle. 

“Don’t listen to him, Commander. We’d have been honoured to join your clan.” 

“Speak for yourself. I've always said it’d be a galactic crime to tie me down. I’ve got _at least_ five more marketable years in me.” Fives rolled his winged shoulders with a wink at Ahsoka. 

Anakin, who never looked at anyone else except to compare them unfavourably to Padmé, made a face. “You’re all dismissed.” 

Once the staff door whispered shut behind them, Rex released a _whoofff_ of anxious breath and ran his hands across his scalp as if to clear any shame still stuck to his stubble. 

“Aww, come on, that wasn’t so bad,” Ahsoka said, bopping Rex’s spaulder playfully and running ahead of him. She hoped they hadn't finished jetpack shakedown without her. “And thanks for not spilling about the walker. I mean, I know _you_ were driving, but that local spice!! Stars, who knew a couple hits would make me want to fight that rancor.” 

“Wait, what?—Ahsoka, what _rancor?!_ What _spice?!_”


End file.
